The Nature Of Monogamy: Part I

By Kevin Fleming
[Relationships]
Are human beings meant to spend their lives with just one person?  Kevin Fleming explores the age old question of monogamy in our species.
Not to sound like a tabloid, but a recent event involving a high profile individual got me to thinking:  are we truly monogamous by nature?  By definition, a relationship between two individuals and two individuals only is considered monogamous.  However, as we know from tabloid worthy “news” and our own lives, a lifelong relationship between two individuals is a rare phenomenon these days.  Maybe monogamy hasn’t been a social norm in the history of Homo sapiens.  Are we instinctually programmed to reproduce at all costs, even at the expense of our romantic relationships?  Or is our modern society leading to a change in our instinct to be monogamous?  Let’s look at the current evidence and see why we may potentially not be as monogamous as we like to think we are.

Infidelity Statistically Speaking

It isn’t uncommon for most of us to believe that committing an infidelity is morally wrong.  In reality, roughly 90 per cent of us believe so.  Yet romantic infidelities happen more often than we think.

When many of us hear the word “cheating” in terms of heterosexual relationships, we usually assume that it was the man who cheated.  In real world terms, that isn’t the case.  Statistically speaking, roughly 60 per cent of men and 40 per cent of women will have an affair in their lives.  The parity between men and women in this regard decreases if you take into account both men and women’s ages.  Young women (i.e. in their fertile years) are just as likely as a man of similar age to have an affair.  Strangely enough though, we’re usually ignorant about our partner’s extramarital activities, as 70 per cent of women and 54 per cent of men are completely clueless about their partner’s infidelities.

What are the logistics of these affairs, especially in regard to married individuals?  As we know, committing an infidelity in a marriage can cost a spouse more than just their husband or wife, which makes it all the worse.  In the Western world, infidelities affect every 2.7 marriages and of those affairs, ten per cent last one night, ten per cent last less than a month, 50 per cent last less than a year and 40 per cent last for a year or more.

In conclusion, let’s go back to the original statistic that 60 per cent of men and 40 per cent of women will have at least one affair in their lifetime.  To put it more in perspective, take into account the total number or marriages or relationships that are affected by affairs.  If, for example, 20 per cent of involved women are having affairs with men who are not taken into account in the original 60 percent of involved men, then roughly 80 per cent of all marriages or relationships have the potential to be affected by an affair.

A Short Natural History Of Infidelity

As the statistics suggest, we may not be as monogamous as we like to think we are.  Why is this though and how long has it been going on?  Does it have something to do with society, religion or our instinctual makeup?  In modern times, especially for those that hold some sort of Judeo-Christian beliefs, monogamy is seen as the correct route (other faiths may say the same thing).  But long before our current religious beliefs became more mainstream, we were a species hell bent on reproducing at all costs.

As a species we are not defined as polygamous.  Compared to other creatures inhabiting the planet, we are quite monogamous.  For example, if we look at one of the more widely known species like felines, we see that they mate with any other opposite sex cat that crosses their path (if they pass various tests, of course).  Some cats, like lions, may deviate from this norm, but in aggregate, a cat, big or small, will reproduce whenever possible.  In comparison, we haven’t been all that different and we have one common trait that can be found in most mammalian species.
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